


IRIDESCENT (A White Christmas story)

by miriam_giacopinelli



Category: Black Mirror (TV)
Genre: Action, Action/Adventure, Angst, Artificial Consciousness, Artificial Intelligence, Cookies, Cuddling & Snuggling, Domestic Fluff, Dystopia, Dystopian society, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Roller Coaster, Episode: s02e04 White Christmas, F/M, Falling In Love, Father-Daughter Relationship, First Kiss, First Time, First Times, Fluff, Future Fic, Hope, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Smut, Loss, Matt Trent - Freeform, Matthew Trent, Not Giving Up, Original Character(s), Original Female Character(s) - Freeform, Politics, Post-Canon, Propaganda, Rebellion, Redemption, Regret, Romance, Science Fiction, Sharing a Bed, Social Media, Swearing, Technology, Touch-Starved, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, White Christmas, consciousness, redemption arc, society
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-12 19:48:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28515930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miriam_giacopinelli/pseuds/miriam_giacopinelli
Summary: Takes place after the White Christmas episode.Matthew Trent has been alone for some weeks now, the block he has been cursed with has brought him nothing but sadness, isolation and loneliness. Yet, when he spots another red figure like him sitting on a zoo bench, he knows that it is all about to change.Iris is a young woman with a dark secret buried in her past who got used to never seeing nor hearing other human beings, or so she likes to believe. It has been like this for so long, and this condition of hers will probably last until the day she dies. She did not see this crimson shape of a man coming, bumping into her life and turning it upside down.What they have in common is that they have both been deprived of their very existence, which cannot be considered worth living anymore. However, they might not give up as long as they are together and try to find a way to fix it.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 1





	IRIDESCENT (A White Christmas story)

**Author's Note:**

> Author's note:
> 
> This is my first fanfiction ever, plus I am not a native speaker, feel free to correct any grammatical error in the comments, I will be forever grateful if you do so I can keep improving! Some choices of words may feel weird, then again, forgive my foreignness and if you want to explain to me why a certain word or expression doesn’t feel quite right, I am all ears! I hope my mistakes don’t compromise too much the fluency of the story.
> 
> Kudos and comments make me incredibly happy and give me even more motivation to keep telling you about these two dorks. Thank you so much <3

_IRIS_

Like every afternoon, I was sitting on the bench. By then I had already tested every bench in the zoo, from the one in front of the zebras’ enclosure to the one next to the hippos’ oasis, but there was a tacit agreement amongst me and all the tourists and workers, which established as my personal bench the one in front of the lions’ cage.

People hadn’t gladly lingered at that specific spot of the park for months in order to observe some poor lions taking naps and, sometimes, mating. That had been officially labelled as the place of the “blocked”, of the “red figure” and other peculiar epithets I had been able to eavesdrop from the clients’ conversations at the cafe.

At first it was ok with me. After the sentence, I wasn’t exactly dying to relate to people, especially as the ones who I believed to be my friends had simply vanished from my life, but as weeks went on, I began missing seeing a face. Hearing the sound of a voice.

At least lions talked to me, and I answered. We frequently engaged long and deep conversations: I complained about the bastard and corrupt system that was governing our lives and had ruined my existence (without sparing any satisfying, colourful language, the lonely passers-by couldn’t hear me anyhow) and they complained about their meagre rations of food. Well... I guessed that was what annoyed them the most, apart from not being free, which was pretty obvious.

Animals were the only sentient life forms I could interact with that I had left. I was learning to appreciate their company almost more than the human’s. Almost.

I was sprawled on the hard wood, my bum had probably already taken the shape of the thick boards long before. I didn’t even find them that uncomfortable anymore, I had got used to them. It was my private little settee in a world studded with indistinct and silent shadows.

Sometimes someone would walk down the paved path in front of the bench, without evidently stopping by. That day I must have counted a dozen dark silhouettes, not bad, it was after all a Saturday afternoon of April. Maybe somebody had glanced at me, but I couldn’t be sure, I never was. I was always grateful for whoever casually deemed me worthy of their attention, out curiosity or disgust, I didn’t care: it was way better to be despised than to be completely ignored. It was the only way I had to remain sane. There were some moments, unfortunately more and more frequent, where I doubted my very existence. Luckily, my fruitful interactions with animals proved these worries of mine wrong.

Children were the kindest. The younger they were, the more they tended to trust me. They lacked the preconception about keeping away from a registered: they were simply curious. Most of the times, when kids walked past me, their parents just shoved them away, a bit like when a child points at a disabled person: while some guy on a wheelchair did not give the impression of being dangerous, I totally gave it. Apparently, parents pictured me holding some sort of of weapon ready to kill their precious creatures, had they got too close.

A few times some kids had slowly drawn near my usual bench emplacement. The past summer, these two little things had appeared, possibly siblings, and had marched in my direction while holding hands. I was barely able to perceive their confused whispers, naturally without comprehending a single word. Stopping right in front of me, they raised their hands waving at me and I immediately copied them. I heard their attempts at speaking to me and likely at asking questions: I explained to them that we couldn’t hear each other, so that they could witness it in first person. We stayed to chit-chat for a couple of minutes, then some overly alarmed parents came to rescue their offspring and shouted to my face: thankfully, I wasn’t capable of understanding them, otherwise I certainly wouldn’t have kept my mouth shut as they were dragging away those kids who had said to me more words than anyone else in the last few years. They needed to be saved from the “monster of the zoo”. Yeah, I’d heard that one too. I’d presumably become a legend among people in the city. To be fair, being that famous was failing to make me feel flattered.

That day I was lazily contemplating a lioness that was licking a bit too vigorously a puppy’s head who, not so happy about it, was trying at all costs to free himself from his mother’s grip.

It must have been around 5 p.m., the initial spring breeze smelt like sprouts and empty promises.

I was feeling great. Despite an indeterminate sentence and the fact that I hadn’t talked to anyone for so long I didn’t even remember the fundamental rules of social interaction, that was my favourite time of the year: days got longer, nature was being born again and in the morning the grass was still wet from dew.

Without any warning, any noise, any drastic change of brightness indicating an apocalyptic event, a reddish figure walked into my field of view. As soon as I spotted it to my right, I lowered the hood that had been resting on my head in a millisecond. I hadn’t even perfectly focused yet, but my brain had already processed all the important information: it was definitely a scarlet shape, like me, which meant he or she wasn’t capable of seeing nor hearing, like me, and in that exact instant, unlike me, it was approaching my bench.

In the beginning, I wasn’t even aware of the fact that my frame resulted red instead of grey to the eyes of others. Luckily, I could still see a normal and colourful body when I looked directly at myself or in a mirror, and I could still recognize my usual timbre and the words I spoke out loud when I talked. Mine was the only body I was allowed to see and the only voice I was allowed to hear. After a short time, I realised everybody was avoiding me like the plague, so I supposed I might have a distinctive feature that identified an atypical block.

I didn’t find out what it was until the second autumn since my judgement. Not one, not two, not three, but four of my graffiti had been ruined with some charming writings, such as “Bitch”, “Red bitch”, “Red devil” and so on. I assumed the first two cases could be a coincidence, but when the third and the fourth time the nicknames didn’t change, I began to suspect that it had to do something with red, the only spray paint colour employed by those losers, by the way. I had bought a plain camera, not connected to the internet, and I gave myself a rather artistic photoshoot. There weren’t any people near me, of course, even so you could clearly see the greyish formes of strangers avoiding me in the distance. As I had imagined, I was still able to see myself: nevertheless, it had been an attempt worth a try. I was left with a bunch of good pictures of myself that I framed and hung on the wall.

Then there were the low-voiced comments: as I sauntered around the zoo, I had caught many phrases referring to me, always containing the word “red”.

Consequently, I hadn’t been perfectly certain about the peculiar nature of the colour of my outline until I met another one, that Saturday of April.

I found myself literally glued to the bench, beginning to breath heavily. I thought that the reaction my body was showing was... interesting. The ruby shade of this individual gave away the possibility that it might have been dangerous, or at least that that possibility was higher compared to anyone else who didn’t stand out for their uncommon appearance. However, I thought about myself right away, about my unfair conviction: the kind of punishment I was serving wasn’t the endless guilt for doing something, but for not doing anything. Still, there should have been nothing more than that. I wasn’t a criminal, I had committed no felony, and I considered the option that it could have been the same for whoever was standing in front of me at that moment.

In addition to that... that vermilion shade, so different from the anonymous grey I was bound to see every damn day, but also so different from any type of red I had ever come across, so intense, it attracted me in a sort of morbid way. So that was the colour everybody saw me in...

While I was staring deadly at this hologram that was eliminating the distance between us with attentive steps, I was starting to spot the usual characteristics I had learned to notice in silhouettes in the past months. From its shape it was undeniably a male, rather tall, at least 6’1, short hair, wide shoulders, he was keeping his hands in the pockets of his coat, he wasn’t producing any sound. I thought he had such an insecure gait for a man his size, but then I assumed: perhaps it was the first time for him as well that he met someone like... me. Like us.

He ceased to walk when he was three feet apart from me. Regardless of the particular situation we were finding ourselves in, I was beginning to get the sensation that the silence between us (which had been lasting no more than a bunch of seconds) was becoming heavy.

I instinctively muttered «Hey…» with a hoarse voice. I felt grateful that he wasn’t able to see me, since I just kept being sprawled upon my favourite bench, my lower jaw detached from the rest of my face in a not-so-gracious manner.

One extremity separated from the compact figure and with his arm in the air he hinted at a greeting.

I suddenly twitched and sat up in a more well-suited position, ready to stand up, cut and run, but also to remain sat, given reasonable circumstances.

The crimson shadow put up his hands to demonstrate he was inoffensive.

I was scared. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t, my heart was racing like crazy against my chest, but right then my curiosity was somehow winning against my fear.

Despite having more or less a thousand questions in my head, I couldn’t focus on a single one of them. I was like magnetized to this stranger I knew nothing about, and at the same time already everything I needed. Or so I thought.

I heard a muffled sound and the image, which reminded me to be a person in flesh and blood, made a gesture towards the bench. He had asked if he could sit.

I realised I was kind of occupying the whole bench, so after relaxing my shoulders I quickly shifted to my right.

I examined how he settled in as casually as possible, as if we were two normal people sitting next to one another during a normal spring day.

I could not get my eyes off him. He’d got a gentle profile, but not being able to understand precisely what his facial features were was driving me mad.

I couldn’t regard his visage any longer, he had turned to me, making me wince.

We peered at each other for a bit. Keeping my stare fixed on him was starting to feel... strange. I wasn’t used to all that attention and, potentially, neither was he.

I turned to the lions’ cage. The pup had finally managed to escape from his mother and was rolling around in the mud along with his comrades in miniature. I lifted my legs from the ground and I crossed them upon the bench, attempting to let go of my tension. To be honest, no matter how much I tried not to look at him, my eyes kept coming back over that hypnotic ruby shade, and it seemed he couldn’t help it either.

I could not believe it. My brain was still shocked at the idea of meeting another person like me. In the past, I had yearned for such an encounter, but I’d never imagined it would occur. Now that it was occurring, I was scared as shit.

At some point he began mumbling something I evidently couldn’t catch, though apart from this insignificant detail, I was listening with an interest I hadn’t shown to anybody since... since it had all started. It was good to witness this vaguely pixelated and definitely inhuman sound, it was good not to be isolated, but I was aware of the fact that his colour meant this was not just some guy. He had a particular backstory, partially similar to mine.

No, not similar to mine. I didn’t know of anybody who had been through what I had been through. And yet, it didn’t matter whether we had done similar or totally opposite things, our actions had brought to the selfsame result: we were both two blurred images of the same, identical colour.

_MATT_

Anxiety had now been replaced by a keen interest.

I had been picturing this very moment for days, I had been thinking again and again about how it would go, about all the countless alternatives. For now, everything was going exactly as I had expected, as I had hoped.

My assumptions about her proved to be mostly right: long and wavy hair, often hidden under a hood, thick-framed glasses (I guessed she was wearing plano lenses, now that Zed-Eyes were designed to correct any sight defect, unless... the correction had just been switched off along with basically everything else), clothes far too large for me to figure out her body shape and a pair of sneakers. From afar I hadn’t been able to notice a very pretty snub nose. Not being capable of working out her age was causing me a considerable amount of frustration.

«It’s weird to actually be here» I murmured. «You know I’ve been… watching you…»

_God, saying it out loud makes me sound like a fucking stalker._

«I mean, for some days, not that long, but...» I stuttered. I lowered my gaze onto my hands.«Anyway, I thought I wanted to meet you...»

_Listen to yourself, you sound like a psychopath._

_Maybe it’s because you are, it’s what everybody else_ _told_ _you._

I fidgeted with my pen inside of my pocket and shook my head. «Jesus, I’m glad you can’t hear me right now...» When I turned back to her, I found her regarding me. Or perhaps she was looking the other way, I could not detect her prospective while she was being stationary. ‘Cause she was.

After a bit, I was then certain of it, I realized she'd been staring at me. I wished I could see the expression she was making...

I had her attention.

_Alright… now or never_.

I took out of my pocket the pen I had been playing around with since I had gotten out of my house. I pulled out the notebook from the inside pocket of my coat, as well. The girl (woman?) made a quick movement, the outline of her silhouette twitched and became incomprehensible for an instant. I knew she was able to see them. I sensed her frame leaning towards me.

I had her attention.

_Now or never_.

“Hey”.

I wrote slowly, pondering every line, every space in between letters, with incredible caution.

I handed her the notebook and the pen, but she didn’t take any of them: on the contrary, she remained static and merely stared at the two objects.

I _hoped_ she would trust me, just enough to engage a conversation with me. It wasn’t like I was going to harm her, in broad daylight. Not that I... ever... meant to do so. She couldn’t know, though. I could get why she was being so reluctant, but I genuinely wished she would let go of her logical fear and start writing.

Seconds were passing slowly as ever, but I wasn’t intending to give up so easily.

Instead of grabbing the objects from my hands, she began searching her own pockets, finding nothing at first. She then drew out a pen of her own. She persisted in looking for a scrap of paper but seemed to find none.

She turned back at me and with a sigh she reached out for my notebook, taking it carefully. She remained to contemplate the small sheet for a bit. This one should have been the easy one, in fact another “Hey” materialized.

_Ok, we’ve broken the ice._

I took a deep breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.

She ripped out a couple of pages so she could keep them for her own and lent me back the lightened notebook. I automatically scrawled on it “I’m Matt”, like I had planned to.

“How long?”

I saw her scribbling and bringing the piece of paper under my nose. She had made a hole at the end of her question mark.

_Alright, let’s skip the pleasantries. We don’t need them after all._

I instantly knew she was referring to the block. That single question made me certain about one thing, at last. We registered were red.

I couldn’t be completely sure before, not even when I’d stumbled on her on Monday. I realized people were avoiding her, but being a full-term blocked myself, I had learned not to trust my eyes, or at least not to believe that what I saw was what everybody else saw. I had assumed, maybe even hoped (which was very selfish of me), that she might be just like me. The very fact that there existed a register before I was on it implied that I wasn’t the first one, but I’d always thought that if I had encountered another one like me, I wouldn’t have noticed it. Instead, that had been the first time I ever saw someone who stood out amid the usual gray silhouettes that inevitably dotted my life.

Still fulfilled with my discovery, I slowly answered “About 4 months, you?”

I tried not to let any small detail about her behaviour elude me, it was already hard enough to gauge her reactions without being able to see what she looked like.

She hesitated for a little bit, then wrote down: “3 years in a few days”.

I... I mean I could have expected it, but... wow. The thought of it just blew my mind.

Three years. I was so close to getting crazy after a stupid couple of months, I didn’t want to think about where I would be in three years. If I had remained sane.

She looked sane enough. Even though I wasn’t able to see what her physical appearance was, on first impression she just transmitted tranquility.

Without knowing, I found myself writing “I’m”, but I stopped mid-sentence. What did I want to say? That I was sorry? That I couldn’t imagine to go on for so long without losing track of reality? Did she want to be pitied? Maybe she didn’t.

Even without looking at her, I knew she was watching me, waiting for me to end what I’d started scrawling.

I needed to come up with something, it would have been awkward to simply let it be like that.

I made out a hand approaching mine and completing the sentence with blue ink, coming up beside my black letters. What arised on the sheet were the words “I’m Iris”, she then quickly retracted her arm back onto her lap.

After all those days monitoring her, I finally had a name.

_Iris._

I don’t know why, but it suited. I had tried to predict what her name would be: after some unfounded guesses based entirely upon the lack of physical features, I had decided she would tell me herself.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Iris”.

“You too” she replied on her wrinkled piece of page.

Now I needed to compliment her. I had previously come up with several things I could be telling her to make her feel valued, but I had been genuinely struck by the way she drew letters. They were scribbled so fast and yet so elegantly.

“You got a nice handwriting” I let her know.

She lowered her gaze as if she wanted to check personally. She tilted her head a little and toyed with her pen: she probably didn’t know how to respond to that.

A simple “Thanks” appeared on her stolen scrap of paper.

She didn’t seem to want to continue, so I asked “Are you from around here?”

She hesitated even more than before. I knew I was starting to get personal, but what else could we talk about? That’s the kind of things you bring up when you meet someone new. Of course, that rule applied to normal situations, but I needed to get information out of her.

I saw her scrawling something, but I could not make out the full sentence. It was only when she showed me her sheet that I read “How can I know I can trust you?”

I hated to admit it, but she had a point. In fact, it was the whole point of this encounter. She didn’t know me, I didn’t know her, however I was sure she yearned to conversate with someone almost as much as I did. I couldn’t know whether I was the first blocked she’d ever met: for my part, she was the first one I’d ever bumped into. I supposed the city hadn’t been colonized by many of us, and even if it had, we were destined to loneliness: until then, I thought I was the only registered in town.

I decided to show empathy, so she would open herself more.

“You legitimately can’t. At least not after we’ve known each other for 5 minutes”.

After she read, I noticed her cheek changing shape, then she looked up at me. Our eyes likely met at some point, even just for a second. I like to believe they did.

I saw her writing “Seems fair”. Right after, she added a smile to that. “That smile was creepy” she immediately confessed “but I am smiling right now. Just, it’s not as creepy as” and she drew an arrow pointing to the face she had just sketched.

I didn’t find it creepy at all, I simply found it funny.

The fact that she felt obliged to apologize for such a silly thing meant that she was looking for validation. She wanted me to like her.

“I’m smiling too” I put black on white. She actually studied my face to see if she could spot the smile I was talking about. I wasn’t lying when I said I was.

After scribbling something, she extended her page so that I could make out the words “I live down the city. How about you?”

She had answered to my previous question: she was starting to have confidence in me.

Before coming to her, I had decided I would be as true as possible, so that I could build a trustworthy relationship between us.

“Me too” I said. “I’m actually American”. I didn’t need to add that, but nothing bad could come of that statement.

“Where exactly?” she automatically asked. She was interested.

“St. Louis”.

I saw her nodding subtly. “Never been in America”.

“You’d like it” I replied.

“How can you say?”

I stared at her piece of paper, her words diverting the hole she had previously made on the other side of her it. My mind was racing for a plausible response: how could I say? I couldn’t. It’s the sort of comment you do when you talk about some place, there needn’t be a reason.

Before I could come up with something, the same sheet landed in front of my eyes, with a new word on it: “Well?”

I turned to her. She gradually retreated her arm and lowered her gaze. She covered the last word she had written with her fingers, perhaps ashamed of her insistence?

We both scribbled something at the same time, and then we looked at each other’s responses.

“I suppose I can’t”, “Sorry, I’m getting used to being answered”. She definitely hadn’t been talking to anyone in a long time. Her words got a small chuckle out of me.

We sat like that for some minutes. I didn’t want to push her too much. I tried to enjoy the brightness of that dying afternoon and the temperature that wasn’t as low as it had been the earlier week, but being sat next to this silhouette that wasn’t so anonymous anymore was the only thing I could concentrate on.

I had made it to the first step of my not-so-studied plan, which was the part where she would start talking to me. I guessed I could have prepared myself a little bit more, in order to forecast each of her responses, but I couldn’t wait any longer. I _needed_ to meet her that day. I was afraid she wouldn’t have shown up, like the past few days, so when I spotted her that afternoon, I decided I would set aside my tendency to think everything up, just for once. I had never been an unpredictable man, then again, a lot of stuff had changed since Christmas Day.

I wondered what it would look like from an external point of view, to see two blocked holograms sitting together in silence, both watching some lions right in front of them. Though, not many people used to stroll around there, Iris kept them away. Not that I couldn’t relate.

At some point, I realized she was scrawling something more, so I turned right on time for her to show me the question: “How did you find me?”

I tried to temporize, searching for the right words to use. “You don’t exactly blend in”.

She wrote faster than before: “So you just accidentally happened to walk around the zoo and just came across me?”

It wasn’t untrue. Well, she had already chosen the words in my place.

“I couldn’t have said it better” I answered. She didn’t pick up her pen to reply, instead, she looked at my face, then she looked around, perhaps searching for the hiding spot I had been utilizing? Well, she couldn’t know, she didn’t know I had been watching her for some days, yet.

“You don’t believe me?” I tried to joke, although jokes didn’t seem to work out too well, as we weren’t able to see our counterpart’s expression. She had probably taken it too seriously, as if my tone was being accusatory, but I wasn’t comfortable in drawing a smiley face yet, it would have been a little out of context.

Shaking her head, she slowly wrote a response, clearly enough for me to watch every letter come to life. “Sorry, I do. I just guess the chances for this to happen were very low”. She _had_ taken it seriously, but it was fine like that. Those chances were low indeed. I couldn’t explain to her how grateful I was for discovering her. Not this time.

“You apologize too much for my liking” I scribbled, feeling bold enough to draw a smile at the end of the sentence. I had quickly changed my mind about emojis: all things considered, in the absence of sight, we had to make do with what we had, even if it was poor sketching skills for my part.

For the first time, I heard something similar to a small chuckle coming from her. Although stifled, I could still recognize a laughter from spoken words.

We looked at each other. Had we been able to see, it would have felt odd, to study and to be studied for more than a couple of seconds, but the fact that we had nothing else than a confused figure to inspect kind of gave us the right to stare at one another with such spontaneity and innocence.

I knew I had to continue being honest with her, and in all sincerity, I sort of wanted to.

“To be 100% honest with you, I didn’t discover you today. I first saw you 5 days ago”.

She looked at me and quickly answered: “Why didn’t you come to me then?”

No use in telling her a lie, I only hoped she wouldn’t find it too weird.

“I have to admit I was kinda taken aback. I didn’t know I’d meet someone else like me here, in this city. I hoped you’d come back. You did. It just took me another couple of days to gather up the courage and come talk to you”.

After I finished writing, I didn’t raise my gaze at her all at once. Despite wanting to take note of every minuscule reaction of hers, I wanted to show her I felt a little embarrassed. Maybe I truly was. _What for?_

I didn’t linger too long on that thought, as she picked up her pen and began replying. Her movements were slow, as if she needed to think about every word she wanted to employ. She made long pauses before and after each sentence.

“I’m glad you did. I mean it. You have no idea”.

I guessed that must have been quite an emotional statement for her to express. I raised my eyes to the sky and I closed them for a second.

_Me too, Iris. Me too._

I casually scrawled “My pleasure” on my notebook. I had already reached a page five for this conversation, more than any other I’d had in the last weeks.

The sun was beginning to go down in front of us. The light on my face wasn’t annoying, it was filtered by the usual British cloud permanently hanging in the sky.

I hadn’t been in such a great mood in... quite some time.

A trio of potential teenagers walked so fast past us that I couldn’t even recognize the boys from the girls. On that specific rare occasion, I didn’t mind a little privacy.

“Let’s play a game”.

Iris was holding her almost full piece of paper right in front of my eyes.

I turned my head to her and saw she was peering at me. I simply nodded, curious to find out what she had in mind. A rather interesting mind, I have to say.

She nodded too and put down the few easy rules on the back of her sheet . “You’ll describe to me what you look like and I’ll do the same. The most detailed description wins”.

I grinned: I would have asked her myself eventually, but I was intrigued either way. She had put it in a different kind of competitive way.

“Wins what?” I inquired.

“We shall decide that later”. Seemed legit.

I ripped off another page and gave it to her, since she was running out of space. She prudently took it.

I sort of turned my back to her so she could not see what I was coming up with. I tried to be as precise as possible, but I also thought there wasn’t much to say in addition to the usual stuff. I didn’t mention anything about my body shape, height and weight because I imagined she could already figure out those things by my scarlet outlines, nor did I mention my forehead wrinkles as I didn’t want her to picture me older than I actually was. I glanced at her to check if she was done, but her head was still down on the sheets, scribbling rapidly. I looked at my notebook. “I have black hair, with some silver shades to my displeasure, it’s longer at the front. I have green eyes, a short beard, I’m 42”. I really couldn’t think of any other sensible thing to say.

I returned to observe the lions’ cage. I waited some more time, then Iris finally gave me back the crumpled piece of paper: she hadn’t left any blank space. In exchange, I handed her my notebook.

“I have caramel blonde hair, it is wavy and pretty long, I have dark brown eyes, I wear glasses with a see-through frame, I have a pointy nose with a super small bump, I have freckles but not too many, I wouldn’t really know what to say about my mouth, I think it’s pretty normal. I have diastema, it means my front teeth are slightly apart (don’t worry I didn’t know it had a name until just some years ago), I have a tongue piercing, I'm wearing a green hoodie, a black leather jacket, dark trousers and white shoes. I am 5’3, my skin colour is fairly light, I think you can kinda see my body shape right?”

As I finished reading I looked back at her, who had probably been staring at me for quite a long bit. I was trying to imagine the visage she had just painted a picture of. Under there, _right there_ , a pair of dark brown eyes were gazing at me.

She ripped off another bunch of pages from my notebook, she then returned it, though not before writing on it “Pretty clear, isn’t it?”

I chuckled ironically. It positively was.

“Yes” I scrawled. “You forgot to mention how old you are though”.

“Should you be asking that to a lady?” she replied right after.

I let out a brief laughter. She didn’t seem the type of person to seriously mean that. Yet... a _lady_?

She giggled as well, and wrote down “I’m 30. I won anyway”.

_Ok, she was not an old lady._

Not a kid, not as grown up as I was. A fine age. I didn’t know what to expect but 30 was... fine.

“Yes you did” I concluded. I wanted to tell her I didn’t see any bump on her nose, yet I decided that maybe it wasn’t mandatory to say.

We spent some time looking between the boring lions in front of us and each other. I was still trying to picture this red blob of a person as the woman she had just told me about. It wasn’t easy, and I supposed it wouldn’t become easier in the future: it was what it was.

I didn’t even know how long we’d spent together until Iris sketched “I have to go now”.

Alright, I knew how to respond to that. “Any chance we could meet again?”

She laid her head onto her hand and kept regarding me. Next, she took her pen and said “I’d love that”.

Great: today’s tasks were fully complete now. I had managed to earn myself a second encounter.

“Tomorrow? 4 p.m.? Here?” I proposed. If she was like me, she wouldn’t have much stuff planned on her weekly schedule.

“Looking forward to it”.

Inevitably, I smiled. “See you tomorrow Iris”.

She scribbled something on her last small sheet and got up to her feet. She didn’t have any purse with her, I thought that a wallet could perfectly fit in one of her seemingly many pocket. She couldn’t own a phone, that was just one of the many perks of being on the register.

She placed a single scrap of paper on my lap, which was reading “See you tomorrow Matt”. I instantly liked the way she wrote my name.

We remained to look at each other for a short minute, then she began walking away. Keeping her hands inside her jacket, she carelessly marched down the narrow path which forked all around the zoo. I followed her with my stare, and she glanced back at me one last time before disappearing behind another cage. I didn’t even check her out because, apart from a messy reddish silhouette , there was nothing to check out.

I sighed to myself and closed my eyes. I was feeling so relieved, the adrenaline caused by this human interaction after three months of utter isolation was still flowing in my blood.

I waited just long enough not to risk meeting her at the entrance, then I pocketed my pen and notebook, taking Iris’s lonely page as well. I finally got up and walked away from the bench.

Not only I felt accomplished, but I was also starting to feel a growing sensation inside of me. I couldn’t name it, but it made me feel good. As if there was still a spark of hope in all the disaster that surrounded me.


End file.
